Meanwhile, at the auditions...

Christine Pedi - Hello, Dolly! auditions

Call all you want but there's no one home

And so, farewell, then to our beloved Miss Carol Channing...

[see my tribute over at the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp]

She was lauded by a devoted audience in so many ways - awards galore, tribute shows (and most recently a whole biographical film documentary), and of course, impressions. Drag queens, comedians, voice-over artists, you name it, Carol's trademark drawl was always a favourite...

And, of course, who could forget her famous duet with "Liza-with-a-zee" on a GaGa and Beyoncé number?

Christine Pedi - Telephone

[Well... almost. :-)]

Facts:

• Miss Channing was the first celebrity to perform at a Super Bowl half-time show.
• One of her earliest parts, at age 19, was understudy for Miss Eve Arden (who was 13 years older than her).
• Her name was on Nixon's "enemies list"; to which she responded that it was her greatest honour of all.
• She made her television debut on The Red Skelton Show in 1957, and her last was a cameo on RuPaul's Drag Race in 2016.
• Surprisingly, she was not naturally blonde; every hairdo she sported was a wig because she had an allergy to hair bleach.
• At age 92, in the gay resort of Fire Island in 2013, she made probably her final singing appearance - later stage events, including with Justin Vivian Bond and with Tommy Tune were just "in conversation".

Gawd, we're going to miss her!

RIP, Carol Channing! There will never be another.

A Mark, a Yen a buck or a pound - You're not gonna reach my telephone

Eternal thanks to my MySpace friend the lovely Tony for this one!!

That marvellous lady Christine Pedi, formerly of Forbidden Broadway fame - who we went to see in her one-woman show back in June 2009 - plays Lady GaGa as Liza Minnelli and Beyonce as Carol Channing...

Christine Pedi - Telephone

Sheer unadulterated genius!

A feast of Divas

We went to see the rather faboo Christine Pedi [from Forbidden Broadway] in her one-woman show Great Dames last night, largely on the recommendation of the owner of Dress Circle theatrical music shop [The most homosexual place on earth!], and we weren't disappointed!

A show dedicated to the ladies of the musical stage was almost guaranteed to appeal, of course, but we were thrilled at what a brilliant mimic she is. She opens with the most captivating take on Julie Andrews (a feat that not many impersonators can manage), and isn't afraid to take the mickey (affectionately, of course) out of the great lady's inability to reach the high notes any more. As she sings songs from Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady, Miss Pedi wonders what Ethel Merman, Barbra Streisand and Patti Lupone might do if they were asked to play Eliza Doolittle - and sends them all up hilariously in the process.

Not content with providing us with alternative leading ladies for My Fair Lady, the "fantasy cast lists" get wilder. How about Chicago starring Angela Lansbury? Or maybe Bernadette Peters or Elaine Stritch? Miss Pedi captures the particular nuances of all these ladies with hilarious and sometimes cruelly accurate imitations.

Barbra Streisand (over)doing I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts? Brilliant! Carol Channing, Eartha Kitt, Joan Rivers? She does them all...

The show has some interludes of Miss Pedi singing classics in her own smoky jazz voice, but it is her comic impressions that really make the show special. One sketch had us in fits - an imagined musical version of the death of Anna Karenina (under a train) complete with a Russian version of On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe ("The Abkhazia, Tsiblisi and the Kiev line"): "Do you hear that whistle down the line…?". Genius stuff.

Her best (and most cruel) impression, however, has to be Liza Minelli, complete with all her nervous tics and "best friend in all the world" (everyone is her best friend of course) routines. Performing the songs of Abba in the style of Kander and Ebb, she captures both the skill and the ridiculousness of the great diva with hilarious results!

As a grand finale Miss Pedi recalls seeing the great Eartha Kitt singing I Will Survive and proceeds to demonstrate how she and others would do it - Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn all make an appearance - and the audience was in fits of laughter right to the end.

Here's the lady herself, performing a show in New York:

Christine Pedi - And I am telling you!

If you're a fan of great musical divas, if you like brilliant comedy in an intimate theatre, or if you are feeling down and need a real pick-me-up evening I highly recommend this show. We loved it!

Jermyn Street Theatre